


Fate is a Fickle Thing (You're Bound to be a Hero)

by keyringkie



Series: their blessing, his burden [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Gen, Gods AU, sbi but wilbur phil and techno are gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:42:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27719726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyringkie/pseuds/keyringkie
Summary: It's not rare for gods to choose a champion, but it is rare for two, let alone three to agree on one champion.Techno had seen the boy, when he went to raze his village, an afterthought of war.Phil had heard of the miracle child, who had survived where nobody else could.Wilbur had created him, woven his destiny, seen the paths he could go down.Thomas, Tom, Tommy. Barely a teenager, yet the fate of the world lies in his hands.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: their blessing, his burden [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2028108
Comments: 35
Kudos: 645





	1. use it well (destruction.)

The village was gone.

Of course, that’s all that Techno was expecting. Wherever he went, destruction seemed to follow. It’s only natural a place like this would be obliterated.

He paused for a moment, as he always does. The wind gently winding its way through the wreckage, fires burning out as their energy dies off. Cobblestone house frames line the roads and shattered glass dots the pavement. What used to be a busy market square is now only marked by a large stone roundabout, a single streetlight left standing in its center. Not a person in sight.

Except…

Techno turns, and suddenly he’s staring at a child. An orphan now, most likely, the only survivor of this disaster.

His eyes wander past the messy golden hair, the skin scraped raw on his hands, the steely blue eyes that magically aren’t crying, and suddenly Technoblade feels something he hasn’t in a long time.

Hope. For this child, for his future, for his fate.

He watches as the kid wanders through the square, his footsteps echoing too loudly in the silence that has built. Techno circles the child, silent as always, crouching down in front of him. The kid’s eyes wander straight past him, as expected. Gods aren’t visible to mortals, unless they so choose to be. He decides it’s not worth it to reveal himself, carefully standing.

He ruffles the kid’s hair, letting himself excuse it as the wind. He’s four steps away when he hesitates, when he hears the child behind him inhale suddenly.

He spins, wondering what could have caught his attention, and suddenly he’s staring the kid in the eyes. Surely a coincidence, but as he approaches again he sees the kid scrambling back, almost ramming straight into the streetlight.

Techno stops, holding up a hand and crouching slightly. Trying to show he means no harm.

_Does he really? He’s supposed to be a murderer. The Blood God._

The kid doesn’t look any less scared, but he stops trying to run away.

Technoblade lowers his hand carefully, staring at the kid. Watches him open his mouth.

“Where di’ you come from?”

Techno settles on the floor, his cape pooling around him. The wind whistles around him, tugging along his braid. When was the last time he cut the thing? The last time he lost enough to warrant cutting it? It nearly trails to his waist. Techno fingers the hilt of his sword, undrawn, contemplating finishing this kid alongside the rest of his village. The moment passes, but the thought is still there.

“Everywhere.”

Techno’s answer seems to satisfy the kid, despite the open-ended nature of it. Doesn’t seem any less tense, but he does seem a little less wary.

“You kinda just appeared.”

Techno chuckles, rubbing his chin. “You aren’t supposed to be able to see me.”

That confuses the boy. He scrunches his nose slightly, trying to figure out what that means. Techno takes the chance to change the topic.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Tommy. Er. Thomas, but everyone calls me Tom or Tommy. Called.”

Techno nods slowly, watching as the kid - Tommy - slowly loosens from his tense state. Seems like he’s no longer planning to bolt at the first warning. Tommy fiddles with the edge of his own sleeve, glancing around.

“What’s your name?”

Techno ignores the question, instead leaning back and closing his eyes for a moment. He contemplates his decision. Is this one of the paths Wilbur had created for this kid? One of his thousands of futures? He doesn’t know, but it seems like the kid has promise.

Techno opens his eyes, making quick eye contact with Tommy. Techno adjusts himself, then unsheathes his sword.

In one swift motion, Techno’s braid falls limp in his hands. The hair is soft in his palm, and he methodically wraps it around the blade of his sword, spiralling upwards. A quick spin of the blade and it’s imbued with his energy, the hair gone. A normal sword, the blade a glimmering steel. Faint lines of reddish-pink run across the whole sword, a network that seems to pulse with energy and light in the darkness of the night.

He tosses the sword to Tommy, who catches it with ease. The kid stutters slightly, gaping at Techno.

He looks down at his hands, and realizes that he is, in fact, glowing. Side effects of bestowing a blessing.

Techno nods at Tommy. “The name is Technoblade. God of death. Use that sword well.”

With that, he turns, retreating back into the darkness. Techno makes a mental note to ask Wilbur about the kid later.

Techno leaves behind an eight year old orphan, newly gifted. All he has to his name are the clothes on his back and a sword from a god. (What he doesn’t realize is how much the blessing transfers from the blade to him, leaving the sword an indestructible hunk of metal with webs of red, giving him the blessing of Technoblade.)

And thus, Tommy begins his journey.


	2. turn around, kid (death.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy should have died.
> 
> Phil didn't let him. He doesn't understand why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow i did not expect the first chapter to do as well as it did.
> 
> anyways philza minecraft pog :)

Phil doesn’t leave his kingdom that often.

Not because he _can’t,_ but because it’s easier if he just stays below. He usually has too much going on to even consider leaving.

It’s in the midst of one of his long nights that Techno wanders into Phil’s study, leaning over his desk. Phil sets down his pen with a sigh, adjusting his posture to move his wings off the desk. Techno promptly hops on, fashioning a new sword for himself while Phil continues his work.

The grating of metal and stone makes it easier to concentrate, and Phil almost forgets that someone else is there until the door crashes open, hitting the wall with a thunderous bang.

_“TECHNO!”_

Wilbur’s voice echoes through the room, the tall ceilings and elaborate architecture carrying the sound a little too well over to the duo on the desk. The steady scrape of steel on stone halts. Phil jumps, a line drawing itself across the page with his sudden movement. He glances down at it and discards the document, looking pointedly at Techno.

Phil stands up from his desk, watching Wilbur storm across the hall and slam his hands on the table. Phil makes a mild sound of disapprovement, and Wilbur glares at him before returning his focus to Technoblade.

“You just- rewrote this entire kid’s future! How did he even survive that- Why would you give him your blessing?”

Techno sighs, and Phil catches a glimpse of his hair. The usual braid that broke the typical short hair Techno has was gone, replaced with a tiny beginning of a new one. _A new win streak_ , Phil thinks to himself.

“He lived. I saw some potential.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just _give him your blessing!_ ”

Phil pushes a stack of books to the side, watching the two argue back and forth. Not even really argue; it’s mostly just Wilbur yelling at Technoblade with Techno occasionally interrupting to justify what he did.

Phil dusts his hands off, folding his wings behind him as he finally tunes back into the two’s conversation.

“-and he had such a low chance of surviving that! Almost zero! Same as everyone one! He didn’t have a _destiny_ after that, and now you’ve gone and screwed everything over!”

“Oh, I did that.”

Wilbur and Techno whip around to Phil, who was picking his way through precariously stacked documents, boxes, and books. A small bundle of books sits in his arms, and he carefully makes his way over to one of the shelves, organizing them absently.

“You did- wait, what?”

“Saved the kid.” 

Wilbur stutters. Techno looks surprised, just for a moment, and then he seems to come to a realization and make some sense of things.

“Phil, you never even leave the afterlife- how did you- why- huh?”

Phil waves off Wilbur, sighing. He barely understands why he did it himself. His wings flutter, kicking up a small wave of dust.

“He made his way down here and I turned him away. He’s just a kid, Wil.”  
  
“You see dozens of kids every day! Hell, maybe a hundred thousand a year! Why is he any different?”

“I don’t know!” Phil huffs, turning to face Wilbur and Techno.

“I don’t… know.”

Wilbur seems to soften slightly. Techno clears his throat.

“Phil, you haven’t chosen a champion in thousands of years, and. Well, for good reason. And now we’ve both settled on Tommy for seemingly no reason-”

“He was _supposed_ to _die_ ,” Wilbur cuts in, irritated.

Techno plows forward, completely ignoring Wilbur. “-so what do we do now?”

Phil flops back onto his chair, staring at Techno and Wilbur across his desk.

“See how fate plays out.”  
  
Wilbur snorts, grabbing a book and settling in a nook in the wall.

“Phil, I’ve written fate with my own hands, and even I couldn’t tell you how this will go.”

**\- + -**

“Go home.”

“What?”

“Go back, kid. I can’t- you shouldn’t be here.”

“But- everyone’s over there. Why can’t I be here?”

“Go home. You’ve got too much to live for.”

“Is this what this is? The afterlife?”

He scoffs. “Maybe. You don’t belong here.”

“Why not?”

A pause. Phil takes a breath.

“I’m not sure.”

And with that Phil closes the gate, locking Tommy outside of the afterlife. Outside the underground kingdom, the safe haven, and Tommy is jolted back into his body and he cannot remember what just happened. (However, if he checks his reflection, he’ll see rudimentary wings tattooed on his back, inky black feathers stretching across his skin.)

And so, Tommy lives. For better, or for worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since this is my au and i always feel guilty about info dumping about appearances in writing, here's some random notes about designs n stuff
> 
> \- techno has pink hair. short. like,,, normal male length short. he does have a small braid off the right side of his head, which he cuts whenever he either loses or bestows a blessing.  
> \- wingza. nods.  
> \- wilbur wears these like. golden wristbands. they snake around his upper arms in no particular fashion and he almost never takes them off. can he even take them off? (you can't usually see them though, he often wears longer sleeves.)
> 
> anyways i hope you enjoyed the chapter :)


	3. whether you like it or not (creation.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilbur has to write Tommy's fate, as much as he doesn't want to.
> 
> He doesn't quite understand what Techno and Phil saw in the kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had to sit down like eight separate times to finish this so it's a little all over the place. enjoy!

Wilbur has never been fond of change.

He helped write the web of fate, figure out the chances, percentages, what might happen. No matter how tiny the possibility. He knows the most likely route that the world will run, all the way down to its end. The millions upon billions of things that could change between the beginning and the end.

So rewriting the entire fate of a single mortal throws him off a lot more than he’d like to admit.

It’s been millenia since he’s had to create. He doesn’t often like to return to his roots. He may have been one of the first gods to exist, but that doesn’t mean he enjoyed his position. He’d much rather stay under with Phil and Techno. There was a comfort in living somewhere he didn’t help make. It helped keep him grounded.

They couldn’t assemble the council again; many of the original creation gods had either faded out of existence or moved forward. Wilbur was the only one who hadn’t moved on.

So it was Wilbur’s job to figure out the fate of the kid. Thomas. Tommy, as Techno and Phil had called him.

He slouches, staring at the web. A giant network, electric blue, thousands and thousands of possibilities splayed in front of him.

The past is cemented. Almost legible to the common person. It’d still take you forever to find a pattern, to make sense of it.

Thousands of grayed out possibilities litter the floor, barely hanging onto the past options they were meant to provide. As time passes, more and more fall.

The future is almost unreadable to anyone but those who created it. The blinding white of the Nook (as it is so fondly named by those who started it all) doesn’t help with the headache slowly growing behind his eyes.

Wilbur sits up, leaning forwards and picking his way through the threads. He pushes aside the threads he doesn’t need, the small notations of events carelessly floating away. He’s not worried about looking at the future of the universe right now.

Right now he has to figure out how to write in the possible futures of an extremely terrifying child.

He finds the network he needs (really just the section of the network he needs, the whole thing is too big to keep track of) and discards the rest, focusing in on the thousands of events that hang in front of him.

 _It was a mistake_ , he thinks bitterly, _to give humans free will_.

  
  


Wilbur doesn’t know how long he spends in the Nook. Time flows differently there.

Phil told him he was gone for just a few minutes. It felt like an eternity had passed. Then again, it’s always messy. Watching and changing the universe.

He rubs his face, sighing. Visiting always gives him a headache. Too bright. Why’d they have to make it white and neon blue?

He’s barely satisfied with the future in store with Tommy. He feels guilty, almost, for everything the kid is bound to go through. His chances of dying early are astronomically high.

Writing the fate of a hero is never fun. Sure, his story will be told for decades, maybe centuries, but he’ll suffer.

Heroes are always one for hardships. Tommy won’t be an exception.

But… why does Wilbur feel so guilty about it?

He sighs as he flops onto his bed. Closes his eyes, and drifts off. Let the rest of today be someone else’s problem.

Of course he can’t escape from this.

Phil wakes him up accidentally, and Wilbur groans from the bed.

“Whoopsies, sorry Wil. Just meant to tidy up a bit.”

Wilbur watches Phil through half-lidded eyes, mumbling protests as Phil comes closer and attempts to fix the pile of fluff and cloth Wilbur calls his bed.

“You really do need a proper bed.”

Wilbur sighs dramatically, turning and closing his eyes again.

“This works fine f’r me…”

He feels the weight shift, warmth around him. Weighing him down. It smells familiar, more comforting than he'd ever admit. He strokes Phil’s wing carefully, the soft feathers a comforting touch.

“I’m sorry about making everything harder for you.”

He cracks open his eyes, staring at the wall. He feels Phil wait, the air expectant. He wants a response. Wilbur doesn’t know what to say.

So he doesn’t respond.

It takes a while for Wilbur to warm up to Tommy.

There’s something intimate in figuring out someone’s destiny. Wilbur’s not used to feeling like this. It’s been too long to keep track of since he had written anything, and even then he had the council of a few others.

Writing Tommy’s fate, especially on his own, feels… different. He knows the choices the kid could make, what roads he might go down, the triumphs. The defeats. Every single way he might die.

And strangely, he wants to protect him.

So if Tommy wakes up the next week with a neon blue bracelet clutched in his hand, glimmering gold wiring wrapping around it, he’ll wear it without question.

Since the gods have chosen him. Whether he likes it or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that ends the first bit of this series!
> 
> there'll probably be more tommy stuff in the next bit of the series, but i wanted to dedicate this whole work to just the original three sleepy bois :)
> 
> next part should be out in a few days, depends on how motivated i am to ignore my schoolwork and get all my ideas down

**Author's Note:**

> thank u lillian_nator discord for telling me this is an okay concept to write :D
> 
> talk 2 me @ keyring-kieran on tumblr (i check it sometimes)


End file.
